We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo!

Post by Laura

Unfortunately, our leaders' training day on Saturday had to be cancelled...so instead....we went to the zoo.  We got on the tram slightly unsure of where to get off, but quickly realised there were several families with young children that would clearly lead the way.

On arrival, the first animals we encountered were goats and sheep labelled as chickens - it was going to be a good day.  Other highlights included: a ridiculous amount of time looking at and filming the giraffes, Net filming a climbing tortoise for over 2 minutes, the huge crocodile in the reptile house as well as our favourite little lizard, the gecko and the sting rays in the aquarium.

After the 16 hectares we covered at the zoo and to celebrate our project so far, we headed out to a traditional Latvian restaurant and folk club for dinner.  The food and atmosphere was soaked up and enjoyed by all.  We even managed to cheer up our waiter who was clearly rushed off his feet.

An early-ish start on Sunday found us at the train station where we met some Scouts in time for the 9.50 train to Jurmala to go sailing with the Sea Scouts we had seen twice in the last two weeks.  After a 4 km walk from the station, we arrived at the Sea Scout jetty and were greeted by the leader Valdis. The Scouts got out some little sailing boats, a larger sailing boat and several canoes and kayaks.  

Then before activities on the water began, we had a small parade and flag ceremony involving raising the Latvian Scout and Guide Sailing Team flag next to the Latvian flag and the Union Jack which we had brought with us.  We then led some games with the group to warm up a little before taking to the water.  The Scouts paired themselves off and took a member of Team Latvia with them out on the canoes while the remaining scouts were taken out on the sailing boats.

When the Scouts had returned Team Latvia to dry ground, Katie decided she'd had enough of canoeing for the day but the rest of Team Latvia went back out on the Kayaks on their own.  Meanwhile, on shore a fire was started where the Scouts sat around to keep warm, eat their lunch, cook sausages and toast marshmallows.  Some were also still being shown the ropes on the sailing boats.  

After the rest of Team Latvia had returned to shore and eaten their own lunch and warmed up by the fire, Valdis and Agija offered to take us out on the larger sailing boat for a go.  So we all jumped in the boat and Sarah S, Sarah K and myself took it in turns to be the captain in charge, accompanied by our inflatable parrot prop we had also brought for sailing, named Carruthers earlier in the day when out on the kayaks.  Sarah S and myself had never been sailing before and really enjoyed it.  Sarah K had done it before and got us stuck on a sand bank.

On return to shore, it was time to pack up and there was another parade and lowering of flags ceremony to finish the day.  We said our goodbyes and decided to give Carruthers to Agija as her new mascot when representing Latvia and set off on the long walk back to the station.

    

It's not planning unless there's cake!

Post by Sarah K

Tuesday started off at a fairly leisurely pace, as we rested in the apartment and Net cooked us lunch :) We wandered down to Riga train station and got a train to Lielupe, which is at the Eastern end of Jurmala, and headed to the beach.  It was a bit colder today than it was last week so Laura and I decided not to go for a swim, but we had an hour or so relaxing as a team on the beach, running, doing yoga, playing frisbee and eating our sandwiches.

Sarah S, Laura and Sarah K doing some beach yoga

We left the beach and aimed to take the most direct route to the school to meet the Sea Scouts.  Laura decided that the best way to get there was to walk straight through the forest (without using a map!), but thankfully we arrived in plenty of time and didn't get lost!

We started the meeting by playing Granny Tag, while narrowly avoiding running into trees, and then went inside for woggle making.  We had only managed to figure this out this morning, and therefore it was a bit of a challenge trying to teach them!  Valdis (the Sea Scouts leader) supplied us with some leather to use for the woggles, and Laura and myself set about trying to explain what to do.  We found that it was actually easier doing a practical demonstration in smaller groups and therefore split the group, so there was one of us to 3 or 4 scouts.  They all eventually managed to make a woggle (some more successful than others), but they seemed to enjoy the activity and will be trying it again!

Once again, our trek back to the train station was through the pitch black forest....but this time we managed to actually find a lit path and was not as scary as last week!

Wednesday was a day filled with planning....and planning we only do when there is cake.  So after lunch with Laura's friend Karlis, we found a new coffee shop called Kuu'ka which does amazing cheesecake and gluten free chocolate cake (which made me really happy!!!!!) and settled down to plan our meeting for Vabole on Thursday.  We were told by the leader that we could do anything we liked, and therefore threw a few ideas around before agreeing that it should be all about international Guiding.  We settled on doing a craft to represent each of the WAGGGS World Centres (more on those in tomorrows blog!), and decided that we would need to spend the evening making prototypes in order to be prepared - think Blue Peter with 'here's one I made earlier'.  Once planning was complete we jumped on a tram and headed back to Riga Unit 66.  However, this evening we were meeting with the Cubs and Brownies, rather than the Scouts and Guides as we did last Thursday.

Planning in Kuu'Ka cafe

We had decided on a bit of an international Guiding and Scouting theme for the meeting this evening.  We began by playing a zombie name game, followed by a sitting down game which caused much laughter as it involved sitting on other people.  Then we played an international version of Connect.  We then moved on to complete a couple of crafts to represent two of the World Centres.  We made St George's cross flag badges for Pax Lodge in the UK, and Festival Snowflakes for Our Cabana in Mexico.  For all the other World Centres we played some games - for Our Chalet (Switzerland) we played the Moo game, for Sangam (India) we played Gecko (fast becoming the teams favourite game!), and for Kusifiri (Africa) we played Elephant football.  We rounded off our evening of fun playing Kung Fu jungle, which the Cubs and Brownies were very good at :)

The Moo game...

Once we made it back home we started prepping our crafts for our day with the Guides in Vabole - but more on that in the next blog post!